Lawsuit claims restaurant gave woman degreaser instead of tea

FLORENCE, KY (WCPO/CNN) – Cole is a 9-month-old healthy baby. He already has some teeth and is very curious.

But when Traci Hall was six months pregnant with him, she said she ingested sodium hydroxide from a cleaner called Greasestrip Plus, which was poured into her green tea cup at a First Watch restaurant.

“Luckily, I had a healthy baby, but even now we don’t know,’ she said. “There’s no one that could tell us what this could do long term.”

Hall said she could tell something was wrong from the first sip of her to-go cup. She said her esophagus, her mouth and throat started burning.

According to the lawsuit, she went back in the restaurant and asked the server what was in her cup. They said the busboy who filled it walked them into the kitchen and pointed at a spigot on the wall next to the drink refill station.

Another server saw that and said, “That’s degreaser.”

A call to poison control and trips to two different hospitals later, still no one knew what impact it would have on her unborn baby.

“The rest of my pregnancy, instead of being so excited and joyful it kind of robbed us,” she said. “This is our first baby, you know, so we wanted it to be such a joyful time, and I spent the rest of the time in panic mode.”

A First Watch spokesperson said the company wasn’t aware of the lawsuit yet, so it couldn’t comment.

The Hall family said they waited a year before filing suit because they were negotiating. Their medical bills from that day top $5,000, and First Watch offered them a fraction of that.

“A thousand dollars?” Hall said. “We went to multiple hospitals and doctor’s appointments because of this, and you’re going to offer us a thousand dollars? It was a slap in the face.”